


White

by cym70



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Conditioning, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Gen, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cym70/pseuds/cym70
Summary: All that she knows is white.





	White

**Author's Note:**

> With the introduction of White Pearl, I knew I had to write something about her! Well, probably several somethings since there are so many possibilities, but this is the first one~ It's been so long since we've had a Pearl introduced in canon and I'm really happy we finally got to meet her. (Steven, please save her, she's not okay.)
> 
> No connection to Finding Stars In Desolate Skies here, since White Pearl arrived wayyyy too late in the game for that. But at heart it's a companion piece to the first two fics in that series, since it continues the tradition of me instantly falling in love with Pearls and needing to write about them.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

There’s a shadow over her that’s made purely of light, of things the stars shine with. There’s something inside and outside and everywhere that keeps her blinded in bright white, white, white.

Sometimes she catches tiny snippets of the world outside, little hints of color peeking through the white all around her, but she doesn’t know the colors’ names. She doesn’t know what they’re saying. They just exist, and soon they are pushed away from her once again and she is swathed in familiar white.

Just exist. This is all she has to do, and she knows it because that is what the white tells her. She does not need to think, does not need to wonder about the answers to pointless questions, because the answers are all right here. You belong to the white, it says. You belong, you belong.

She will be everything the white asks of her.

She existed once, she thinks, beyond the endless sea of white. She existed in a different shade of white, perhaps, if there were others. Either way, there is no trace of that color left now.

The world is pure white, the universe is pure white, she is pure white.

Whitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhite—

Pink?

Another color slips in just for a moment, or slips out, out from a mouth that belongs to the white but is also hers.

No, there is no pink. What is “pink” anyway? Irrelevant, the white tells her, and she slips back down again, back into endless white. The word wants to linger but it cannot, because the white is overwhelming.

Things happen, she knows, out there in another expanse of white, in the one where she feels her lips move or her feet glide over something solid. In that other white, her arms ache in a way she doesn’t understand, and the left side of her face is only searing pain and blankness.

But what are lips or feet or arms or face? Those things don’t exist, the white soothes her, and soon the pain recedes once more.

Perhaps there is no other white after all. Perhaps there is only one white, the white that surrounds her now, and the other things are but fleeting illusions. The white holds that power, after all. Perhaps it seeks to test her loyalty with these tricks. Perhaps.

There is none more loyal than her. She does not understand loyalty, but she understands... No, she does not understand anything. There is nothing to understand from such insignificant, tiny words. There is no need for words, not here, not anywhere. She belongs to the white, and that is all. There is nothing to think about, nothing to question, nothing to test. She is nothing.

* * *

There is...something. Something new, something that does not belong in the white and yet there it is all the same. Even as her ephemeral thoughts drift towards it, she knows it will be gone soon. These illusions never last long.

But this one...

It’s persistent, it seems. It’s different. It’s growing.

There is too much pink, too much, too much. What’s happening? This shouldn’t be happening. This never happens. It’s impossible.

There are no other colors but white and yet here one is, almost taunting her.

Something is wrong.

No, nothing is ever wrong.

But why has the white let the pink progress this far? It is...It is nearly touching her. But she cannot be touched, she has never been touched by anything other than this sea of white. She doesn’t know what will happen if it is allowed to touch her—because it would have to be allowed, these things do not just happen of their own accord. The white must want it here.

But then, impossibly, it seems it does not. The white is fleeing from the pink, and she is brought to something far more real in her awareness than she has ever felt before. She is feeling, and that is unheard of. It is not the white feeling for her, because the white is scattering and...

And where is she? What is she?

Is “who” a question too, or is she just confused?

She is very confused.

Where is the white? Why is it deserting her? Or is she deserting it? That must be the case, because the white would never leave her. She must have angered it, must have done something, must have—

But she’d never done anything. She’d only let the white move her, as it was supposed to be.

Why—Why is she thinking so clearly? She shouldn’t be thinking at all.

The pink keeps tugging at her white world, getting closer and closer as everything disappears around her. It’s trying to say something to her too, but she doesn’t understand, she hasn’t heard anything but white since...since when? Always? It must have been always.

But always is being broken away and feeling is flooding back into her fast, paralyzing her with the pain it brings. There’s a gem in her stomach that is ice cold, a fire in her left eye that seems to be spreading across half of her face, rigid muscles in her arms and legs that she can’t force to move. There’s a strange noise too, one completely foreign to her, but then she realizes it’s her voice fighting its way up a throat that had been coated in sharp white.

The pink around her grows agitated but she can barely pay it any attention when she’s so overwhelmed by the sensations fighting for attention in her body. Then, in an instant, there’s contact, something warm and a little sticky touching her face.

She shouldn’t let the pink touch her, she shouldn’t let anything but white touch her, but...but the pink is soothing just like the white was. Is and was, was and is. The white is all gone, she realizes, and she’s seized with fear. Where is it, where is it, where is it?

But within seconds she hears the pink talking to her again, and this time the words don’t sound so foreign.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re safe. I’m going to heal you. You’ll be okay.”

Heal? Heal what?

“Can you hear me?”

Could she?

“I-It’s okay if you can’t talk yet. Pearl said this might take a while.”

Pearl? Pearl was...what she was, right? Pearl said? She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know how to say it.

“It’s okay.”

Why did the pink keep saying that?

“It’s okay.”

Where was the white?

“It’s okay. We’ll take care of you until you’re better.”

Better? How could anything be better than before?

Somehow—she’s not sure if she does it or if the pink does it—her right eye closes, blocks out some of the pink, but all that’s left is black. There’s no hint of the familiar brilliance she once knew. Where did it go? Why had it left?

Is...Is the pink stronger than the white?

Surely not. Not after the white had become everything, not after...

But it is. It is stronger, and it’s somehow dismissing all the pain within her, making it fade. The pain itself is leaving, not just the thoughts that recognize the pain. The white never did anything like this.

This is different.

This is stronger.

She is stronger.


End file.
